


The Hero and the Sorceress

by fireroasted



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireroasted/pseuds/fireroasted
Summary: Karolina Dean was destined to live a simple life like her parents and their parents before them, but everything changed when the Blight came. If she is to save her people, she must ascend the mountain.She doesn’t know what she will find, but she will do whatever it takes to save her home. Even if she must offer herself up as a gift to dark magic.
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	The Hero and the Sorceress

On the highest mountaintop, overlooking lush green valleys and angry spikes of encircling stones, there laid a castle ruling over it all. With its gold-tipped spires and ink-black walls, it cast its shadow over the valley, making its presence known to the worshippers below. Though the people of the valley felt the presence of the castle and its royal inhabitants, few dared to venture up and meet the eyes of the those who ruled over them. There were rumours of magic behind those clandestine walls: black magic that brought both prosper and ruin to the people in the valley, depending on the sway of the moon and the sway of their moods.

Having never seen the royal family before, those who toiled in the sunny valleys worked hard to appease them in whichever ways they thought could appease them. They left offerings of food and wine at an alcove at the foot of the mountain. Livestock and clothing too—whatever they could spare to prove their sincerity, all in the hopes of being spared the threat of magic. These offerings disappeared every few days, thus stoking the flames of the valley’s hope.

Young Karolina Dean was the humble daughter of a miller and a schoolteacher. She’d spent her entire life in the valley, had run through its lush fields and splashed in its crystal rivers. There was nothing she loved more than this valley, and as far as she cared to know, this—encircled in the safety of the mountains; guarded by the black castle at the peak—was where the world stopped and began. For years, she accompanied her parents to their monthly pilgrimages to the foot of the mountain. For years, she prayed to the magic that blessed their lives like everyone else.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about Karolina Dean, other than her renowned beauty. She was, as far as everyone else expected, destined to love and protect this valley like her parents and their parents before them. She would give her offerings and say her prayers, work hard and reap the rewards. She would work at the mill with her father, or at the schoolhouse with her mother. She would work with them until they became too old and weary. She would work until she married and bore children of her own. She often wondered what kind of person would steal her heart away. Would she live her life alongside a doctor? A blacksmith? A baker? If she married a baker, would she still be a miller?

These were the kinds of questions that Karolina looked forward to. These were the kind of traditions that she would carry forth in the protection of her valley.

This was her destiny.

Until the Blight came.

One warm morning, while Karolina was weeding the small vegetable garden, a neighbour burst into their small home. Her mother, who was holding extra lessons in the kitchen, looked up at him in surprise. The man reached out and opened his palms, revealing a pile of curled, withered leaves.

Two weeks after that, the families of the valley gathered together at the foot of the mountain. They spoke in hushed tones, their faces marred by worry. Karolina stood by the alcove, watching quietly as grief seemed to overtake every soul that day. The same way the Blight had spread to nearly every crop. She listened as bits and pieces of conversation grew louder and louder with rage.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“How will we get through the winter?”

“Those up on the mountain—are they unhappy with us?”

“We have nothing left to give.”

“How can they do this to us?”

Karolina knew, as if stricken by divine inspiration, what she must do. She climbed up on top of the alcove and, after bidding a silent farewell to the destiny she had held onto her whole life, she raised an arm high above her head. It was in this moment that she brought forth her bravery, the turning point where she would eventually become, in the eyes of her people, their hero.

“I will go,” she declared loudly. “I will climb up to the castle and demand justice. If justice will not be given, then I will offer myself as the gift. No matter what it will take, I will make them hear my pleas.”

The villagers’ voices rumbled like rolling thunder at her feet. There was reluctance, fear, but for the first time in two weeks, there was also hope. Karolina’s father was the only one to object, but even as he spoke, he could see the looks in the villagers’ eyes. They were all cowards. Even as he sought his wife’s support, he could see what she was thinking.

“Fine,” he said when nobody else rose an objection. “My daughter is the greatest gift that my wife and I can gift. Perhaps the greatest gift this village can give.” The people around him mumbled their agreement. “If she should come home empty-handed, or if she should fail to come home, then we must leave this valley.”

The next day, with a heavy heart, the people of the valley gathered once more at the foot of the mountain. One by one, they removed pieces of their offerings from the alcove and placed them into Karolina’s makeshift rucksack, sewn from the rags of her old clothing and her parents’ love. What remained would be returned to the village, for belief suddenly seemed so futile as the light of their hope would soon ascend into darkness.

And ascend Karolina did. Driven by the fading valleys below and the vision of black Blight sweeping through her beloved home, she climbed higher and higher. She battled the thinning air, the bleeding fingertips, the bitter cold, and the biting hunger. Her rucksack emptied and eventually laid abandoned among the rocks. As she drew closer to the castle, the shadows looked closer. As night fell, it grew darker and darker.

Darker, darker, and darker still.

Three days later, she awoke in an unfamiliar room. A fire cracked at the far end, the dancing oranges and reds the only source of light in this dark, dark room. She tried to sit up, but found that her body could not move. Her arms and legs laid like dead weights at the bottom of a deep sea.

“You’re awake,” a voice in the darkness said from above her. It was unexpectedly gentle, like death beckoning her toward the edge.

Karolina opened her mouth, but found she could not speak.

“I will return your voice, but you must promise to use it only for absolute honesty. I will not tolerate lies and threats. First, you must tell me who you are.”

A sudden warmth bloomed from the base of Karolina’s throat, returning her voice where it belonged. Strangely feeling little fear from the gentle voice, she obeyed it. “My name is Karolina Dean,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Where did you come from and why are you here?”

“The valley. I came to seek help. Who are you?” She asked again.

“Seek help from what?”

“The Blight. It is killing all of our crops. Who are you?” She asked for a third time. “Can you help us?”

The voice sighed. Suddenly, a small white flame burst into existence. It hovered above Karolina’s torso and illuminated the pale, round face of a girl who looked to be her age. She was perched on top of Karolina’s blanket and peering down at her with the fascination and curiosity of a child with a gift on Christmas Day.

The girl was beautiful.

“My name is Nico,” she said. “I live here alone. I could kill you right now if I wanted to, but you do not seem afraid of me.”

“You do not seem scary. Why do you live here alone?”

Nico smile ruefully. “It is my destiny. My parents built this castle for me so I could practice and contain my magic in peace.”

“Is the blessing of your magic a part of the practice?”

“What do you mean?”

“For most of my life, we have been leaving offerings to you and your castle in the hopes that you will bless us with better harvest. But you…”

“Are just a girl? Correct.” Nico scoffed.

“I was going to say you brought the Blight upon us, but somehow, I know that cannot be true.”

The girl raised a brow. “I hold neither power nor interest in the productivity of your fields. But I do appreciate the gifts. They keep my life interesting.”

Blood rushed to Karolina’s ears and into her extremities. Her fingers twitched against the soft blankets. She could finally feel Nico’s weight on her stomach, but she could not wrap her mind around the futility of her life-long tradition. More than that, she could not decide where to put her fury: did she want to push Nico away or pull her closer?

“Now that I have foiled your plan with the truth, what will you do?” Nico asked, rolling the white ball of flames around her palms as she spoke. “Will you stay and alleviate my boredom, or will you go and never come back?”

Karolina shook her head. “We need your help. I am your final offering from the valley. Without your help, we will all die anyway, so do with me what we will.”

The ball of flame slipped out of Nico’s hand and fizzled into nothingness just above Karolina’s chest, plummeting them both into darkness once more. “You’re my what? W-what am I supposed to do with you?”

“You may kiss me if you want. Or, I can kiss you if you like.”

Karolina reached into the dark and felt warm skin beneath her fingertips for only a moment before the weight lifted from her stomach and disappeared completely.

A shadow passed by the fireplace, followed by Nico’s disembodied voice. “You,” she said, “are far too bold. Don’t you know how dangerous I am? Go to sleep and stop this foolishness.”

As if by magic, Karolina suddenly dove deeper into the darkness and entered a deep sleep.

She dreamt of waking up in a small glass cage, just large enough to stand in. All around her on each wall were vague images she did not comprehend. There was a bed, draped with a flowing white canopy, where a young girl slept with a stuffed rabbit watching over her. There were two people she did not recognized, dressed in black, who stood at the doorway of the bedroom for mere moments before fading into smoke. There was a vista of a valley—this Karolina recognized—but the image was cracked and distorted, broken up by angry scars across the wall. Finally, there was mirror. She wore a simple white dress, her hair falling in waves around her shoulders. Karolina stared at her own blue eyes. Smiled, but the reflection did not smile back. She pressed a hand to the wall. It was not a mirror, she realized but a portrait of this moment in time, trapped inside this glass box, surrounded by memories that were not her own.

When she awoke the second time, she was alone. The sun illuminated the small bedroom, revealing rich, ornate furniture and silk sheets she could not previously see. She climbed out of bed and padded across the plush carpet, past the dwindled embers in the fireplace.

She wandered down a grand hall, filled with statues and paintings—portraits of lives from other times. From one hall, she travelled to another, all equally rich in magnificence. Identical doors lined every hall. Karolina peered into several, finding bedrooms, libraries, and dining rooms, all as ornately decorated as the bedroom she had woken up in.

For all the extravagance inside this massive castle, this was the loneliest place Karolina had ever stood in.

Hours later, Karolina found herself back in the first bedroom, the wrinkled sheets her only proof. She pulled back the curtains a little further, allowing more sunlight through and revealing not a window, but a door. A long, white lattice door that led to a small balcony outside.

She stepped out onto the balcony.

And saw the entirety of the valley below.

“It looks so small from up here, doesn’t it?”

Karolina spun around to see the girl from the other night. Nico. Her hair was up this time in an intricate bun, wisps of it flying loose to frame her delicate face. Her skin, as before, was as pale as if she’d never seen the sun. She wore a simple satin dress the colour of midnight, cinched at the waist by a golden belt. While her voice and eyes spoke of unspeakable power, her stature was far smaller than Karolina had imagined. It would be enough to make her smile, had she not been so startled by her sudden appearance. In her hand, she held a plate of unfamiliar fresh fruit.

“Hungry?” She asked, offering the plate.

“What is it?”

“Strawberries. It’s not poisoned—don’t worry. I grew them myself.”

Karolina picked up a bisected piece of the red fruit and held it between her fingers, examining it curiously. “Where?”

“A greenhouse,” Nico explained. “With a bit of engineering and a bit of magic, it’s amazing what you can achieve at the top of a mountain. The boredom helps too.”

Karolina lowered the strawberry back onto the plate. “Can you use your engineering and magic to save us from the Blight?”

Nico pointed out beyond the mountain range, a snake of blue flame spiralling around her arm as she did so. “There’s a whole world out there. What’s the point of putting all your faith in this single valley?”

Karolina reached out, found the flames to be harmless, and lowered the girl’s hand. The flame circled around her finger, its colour glowing from redder with each revolution. “If there is a world out there, then why are you here?”

Nico flinched back, the slightest tinge of pink colouring her cheeks as she extinguished the flame with a wave of her had. “I find you curious, Karolina Dean,” she said. “You come to my home with your demands, with little to offer me in exchange. I save you from the mountainside, and all you seem to do is challenge me.”

Karolina laughed. “I offered you my body, but you turned me down.”

“W-what? That’s not…it’s not that I…argh, stop this nonsense,” Nico grumbled. Her cheeks bloomed crimson, the colour extending from her nose to the tips of her ears. There was something undeniably enticing about the young sorceress, Karolina realized.

“In all seriousness,” Karolina continued, “why do you sit up here by yourself if you don’t care for the valley?”

Nico tilted her head, as if the answer had been glaringly obvious all along. “I’m imprisoned here.”

“By whom?”

The question startled Nico. “I’m…not sure,” she said quietly.

Karolina turned to the valley below them. “If you will not help, then I must return to my people, tell them I have failed, and we will have to leave this valley.” Her voice carried the strength of the sun, but the melancholy of the wind. Though she could barely fathom the words as the fell from her lips, she knew this to be the truth, and for this she allowed the tears to fall. “I have spent my life in this valley,” she said, “and I have seen both it’s beauty and it’s ugliness. It is our home, and if we cannot protect it, then perhaps, as you said that night, we should leave and never return.”

“I don’t understand,” Nico admitted. She walked up to the balcony and rested her elbows on the banister beside Karolina. She drew a semi-circle around the mountain range with a finger. “These mountains imprison you, just as this castle imprisons me. Don’t you ever desire freedom from these shadows? See where else the sun shines?”

“We have all the sunshine we need. Among us and above us,” Karolina said with a smile. “This is where we belong, and even if we must leave, our hearts will always be here.”

Nico gazed out at the swathe of green below, and Karolina followed, wondering what the young sorceress imagined when she looked out at her home. From up here, the picture was blurry. The roofs of houses were little more than flecks of red. They could not see the the men and women in the fields, could not hear the children’s carefree laughter as they raced each other up and down the hills. They could not hear the school bell, could not smell the fresh bread wafting from the bakery. They could not see the beds of flowers at the windows, could not see the expressions on the villagers’ faces. Most of all, they could not see the leaves of their crops shrivel and fall, or the black Blight eating up the roots and suffocating their hopes.

“I wish you could see what I see when you look out there,” Karolina whispered into the silence. A hand reached up and gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. She flinched, but soon found an inexplicable sphere of safety in Nico’s earnest brown eyes and relaxed into her touch.

“Would you like to see my greenhouse?”

The trip to the greenhouse would be, as Karolina would later remember, Nico’s first attempt to entice her to stay. Though she was not even aware of her own intentions, though Nico would never say those exact words, she found them in her eyes, in the shy tilt of her head as she took Karolina’s hand, and in that rare, sweet smile when she led her into a large courtyard at the centre of the castle, where a glass structure stood, mighty and proud, nestled between manicured trees and carefully positioned flowerbeds. Inside was a marvel of greens, yellows, and reds. Fruits and vegetables teemed, many unfamiliar to the hero who spent her entire life in the valley.

For the next few days, Karolina would follow Nico around, marvelling in the riches of gold and green everywhere she went. She would continue to challenge her, and she would continue to be in awe of the way the magic manifested through her fingertips in such mysterious and unexpected ways. Nico would continue to be short-tempered, and she would continue to disappear from time to time. They rove from the courtyard to the study, from the kitchen to the library, filling their hearts and soul with the happiness of simplicity. And as the days wore on, neither could deny that they soon became lost in the company of the other. Every night, Karolina would lay in bed and realize—with equal parts horror and guilt—that she had forgotten about the Blight almost entirely. The realization would not last, however, when Nico slipped into her mind once more and lulled her into pleasant dreams with a wide grin on her face.

A week later, Nico boldly took her hand and led her back into the green house. She pulled her in between the grapevines and kissed her passionately without a word.

“I cannot stop thinking about you,” Nico said breathlessly. “I’ve dedicated my whole life to my magic, and yet you seemed to have put a spell on me so easily. You know, I’ve always loved the unpredictable beauty of fire—it’s destructive, but it’s also calming. It can turn anything into black ash, but bring light to darkness. And you, Karolina Dean, are so much like fire. I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“When you returned my voice to me, you asked me to promise absolute honesty,” Karolina replied, holding Nico close. “You should know that I am keeping my promise when I say that I think I fell in love with you the moment your voice met me in the darkness.”

“Stay here with me, then.”

Karolina shook her head. “I can’t. Though I’ve only known you a short while, I know that I want to, but I can’t. You’ve given me an impossible choice between two things I love.”

Nico said, “You don’t have to go.”

“I do,” she replied with a sad smile. “Though I love you, I cannot explain why. I must leave now, for once I discover reasons to love you, I may never go. If I stay, everyone else I love will die.”

Karolina turned to go. Nico did not say another word. She barely took a step outside the greenhouse, however, when a ring of fire erupted around the building. Karolina spun around, and found anger crackling in Nico’s eyes.

“You can’t go,” Nico said. “I won’t let you.”

Karolina did not reply. She drew closer to the flames and unlike her previous encounters with Nico’s flames, she found the air unbearably hot.

“Let me go.”

“I will have you, and you will be here with me. We will be happy, Karolina. Don’t you see? I can take you beyond these mountains and together we can build a new home.”

“You can have me, but if you won’t help me and if you won’t let me go and finish my duty to my people, I will resent you and we will never be happy.”

“It’s not that I do not want to help you,” Nico said finally. “I simply can’t.” She sauntered out of the green house with dark, bubbling magic pulsing around both hands. “Why haven’t you noticed yet the limits of my magic? I can burn, I can freeze, I can take away, but I can never restore life. You havent asked me yet how I found you. Nonetheless, I will tell you. You collapsed into the side of the mountain, inches from death. You were struck with something—a rock from above, perhaps—and I put you into deep sleep. It was the only way to save you while your body recovered. When you first heard my voice… You’ve been sleeping for three months, Karolina. It’s…it’s too late now.”

“Three months? But that means…what we saw yesterday…”

With a flick of her wrist, the black magic lifted from Nico’s hand and hovered above her open palm. It tugged and pulled until it tore itself open and revealed a world within, a window into another world. One covered with snow. “What you saw yesterday was an illusion,” she said, her expression pained. “There is no hope for the valley. But you—you’re strong. I knew the moment I saw you that you were special. You would survive.”

But the anger within Karolina simply grew. “You asked me for absolute honesty and yet you lied?”

“For your sake.”

“Let me go.”

Nico pulled the window from the air, grasped it in her fist, and furrowed her brow. “There is nothing to go back to.”

“That doesn’t matter, Nico. Let me go.”

“You won’t survive.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

At this, the sorceress scoffed. “You think you can hurt me? Karolina, I—”

Karolina lunged forward and tackled her to the floor. Driven by the image of her parents disappearing into the snow, she pinned Nico down by the shoulders and delivered a tear-streaked blow to her stomach. Nico gasped and the wall of angry flames vanished. “I’m sorry,” Karolina whispered.

She then kissed her hard, with a finality that broke her heart, and walked away.

The descent from the castle was bleak and cold. Furious winds slashed across her skin, and kept her awake. For three days, she did not sleep. She simply drank from the icy snow around her and climbed. Climbed and climbed and climbed.

Her skin was blue and she was half frozen when she finally saw the familiar red roof of her home.

Her parents were alive, though barely. They gathered her in their arms and together they cried, for it did not take long for Karolina to see in the dark depths of their irises that the light was fading and their world was ending.

The Blight had taken everything except their lives. For now. There were few animals left, and precious few weeks until the reserves would deplete completely. Every power they used to believe in had forsaken them.

“There is an overpass that can take us out of the valley,” her father said as they sat shivering in the kitchen. “It will take a week at least to pass through, but a chance is a chance.”

“Is there nothing else we can do here?” Karolina begged.

Her mother shook her head. “I’m sorry, my darling.”

That night, beneath her thin blankets, Karolina dreamt of a gentle voice calling her name. A smile. A strawberry bush sprouting through the earth. She dreamt of red and blue flames, warm but safe as they swirled like twin dragons past her eyes. She dreamt of Nico, sitting alone on her golden throne. All alone. As she held her dark eyes, the voice returned with two words as smooth as honey: “Don’t leave.”

Early that morning, shivering beneath those same blankets, Karolina awoke to a warm red hue and long shadows against her wall. She rubbed her eyes. The silhouettes of her parents sat still like puppets in a scene. They were gesturing, speaking perhaps, but frozen in time. Karolina sat up.

“Nico.”

Nico, who stood by the hearth watching the flames dance, turned to meet Karolina’s eyes. The very air around her seemed too still to be real. Across the room, like dolls on a shelf, her parents were posed in mid surprise. Karolina sprang out of bed toward them, but with a wave of Nico’s hand, her limbs froze mid-motion, and she was left with darting eyes and a beating heart.

Nico, however, was as calm as ever as she surveyed the room. “This is the home you left me for,” she said, touching Karolina’s cheek slightly. To Karolina’s surprise, there was no anger. Only sorrow. “There’s hardly anything here.”

“We’ve never been wealthy in material things. Even when harvests were good. No one in the valley is, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t happy.” Karolina closed her eyes. “And I didn’t leave you. You made me choose.”

“Is it because you care about these people? Your parents?” Nico asked, tilting her head toward them. “You can’t trust them, you know. They’ll leave you someday.”

“What did you do to them?”

“They’re fine. It’s just a bit of magic. You know, if they were given the same choice you were, they would’ve left you behind.” Nico ran her fingers down Karolina’s cheek before dropping them to hang by her sides.

“Perhaps,” Karolina said with a small smile. “And perhaps I don’t know everything you’ve gone through or everything you felt, but I can’t live by your rules or your hurt, Nico. I wish I could show you how beautiful this valley could be, and I wish I could show you what it’s like to be wholly and completely loved. We humans would do anything for just the _possibility_ of that kind of love and acceptance. Even if we had to uproot ourselves and rebuild our homes far away.”

“ _I_ can give you that love and acceptance,” Nico insisted. “I can love you wholly and completely.” Her fingers curled into trembling fists. “Is that not enough?”

“Unfreeze me, Nico,” Karolina said gently.

Nico turned back to the fire with a heavy sigh, but did as she asked. Karolina came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her. “It is enough,” she said, squeezing her close, “but it is only one half of the picture. We are setting out tomorrow. Perhaps you can come with us and we can both be free.”

“No. You won’t.” Nico took her hand, wrapped them in a fiery orange glow, and led her outside. The snow melted at their feet as they trekked silently into the fields. As they approached the rows of blackened stalks, Nico summoned a pillar of flame that licked up every plant until all they could see was a sea of red.

“What did you do?” Karolina cried, releasing her hand to run hopelessly toward the fire. She stood, heart beating wildly in her chest, as the flames rose up into the dark skies, casting the world in an orange glow.

“This is the world you love so much,” Nico said from behind her. “I am setting it on fire for you, so that you can rebuild this world from its ashes.”

The fire raged on across the valley for hours. When the village woke up that morning, all they saw was grey smoke in every nook and cranny of their homes. They ran outside and they wailed and wept for the graveyard of crops they had hung their hopes on.

Just like that, the Blight was gone. But so was everything else.

By mid-morning, the rumours flew and the people gathered around the Deans’ empty field, angry and grieving for all that they had lost months ago. Karolina met them there with Nico by her side. There were no greetings, no dual-edged platitudes, as they hurled their emotions at her as hard as they could. Her parents, equally confused and angry, hung their heads and did not stop them. It wasn’t until Nico spoke did they notice the young sorceress beside their disgraced hero.

“I set the fire,” Nico said, calmly stepping in front of Karolina. A ball of red flame suddenly appeared in her hand, and the villagers gasped and stumbled back, a fog of whispers overtaking the confused mob. “Your hero tried to stop me, but this is the only way.”

“Witch!” Someone cried. “You took everything from us!”

“Who is this?” Someone else demanded. “She had no right!”

Voice after voice clamoured to be heard, and the longer Nico listened, the brighter, the flame in her hand burned. Karolina watched the anger build on all sides, watched the ashes float through the emptiness all around them. Finally, she clasped her hand around Nico’s and extinguished the flame.

“Listen,” Karolina said to the villagers, tightening her grip around Nico’s hand, “we will die if we stay here. I know this because you— _all_ of you—gave me your blessing to ascend up to the mountains to find hope. And in that castle, I found Nico. She may not be the benevolent goddess you pictured, but she _is_ our only hope if we wish to stay here.”

To everyone’s surprise, it was her mother who spoke next. “Karolina is right,” she said. “We cannot keep mourning in the dark until we die. Leaving the valley had been the inevitable reality until this girl came from nowhere to burn our dead crops to the ground.”

“You could have done that yourself a long time ago,” Nico said, earning several glares from the crowd. “I will not judge your foolish sentimentality, but for Karolina’s sake, I will help you start new. _That_ will require real magic.”

The people looked warily at each other, at the young sorceress, and their hero beside her. Though few trusted Nico on that first day, she offered the most hope they’ve felt in weeks. Once the crowd returned home to gather their thoughts, Karolina pulled Nico into a tight hug. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Nico replied matter-or-factly. “If we can bring life back into the valley, I fully intend on taking my offering.”

Karolina grinned. “Your offering will be waiting for you eagerly.”

“Good, now let’s get to work. We have some seeds to retrieve. Take my hand—I refuse to watch you freeze on a mountain again.”

The moment Karolina did so, a soft breeze at their feet began to swell around them. Around and around until a vortex carried them into the clouds. The wind rushed through their hair and pushed them along the steel blue sky until their feet met the soft grass of the familiar courtyard.

Together, they gathered what they could from the green house into baskets and took them back to the valley.

Over the next few weeks, the Nico taught the people to sow winter vegetables. She introduced them to cauliflower and reintroduced them to cabbage. With a few villagers, they construct a large greenhouse at the centre of the valley. They broadened the reserves and learned to repopulate the livestock. The people of the valley found the sorceress curious in that she could float on a cloud but insist on the dirt in her fingernails. She was at once kind and short-tempered, caring and impatient. Capable, but easily frustrated. Curious, but distanced. Still, she was generous with both her food and her knowledge, and the people learned to love her greatly.

Yet, none loved her greater than Karolina Dean, who watched Nico’s heart grow bigger day by day. She stood by Nico in everything, watching the world she loved reveal itself to her bit by bit. Before either of them could realize it, Nico had carved her place inside her home and settled there.

_She_ was her destiny.

Winter soon warmed into spring. They had all survived and the people of the valley threw a great feast to celebrate the hero and the sorceress, who acted with courage, patience, and faith and saved their home from the Blight.

Soon, the bounty of spring brought colours all along the hills of the valley. And it was here at the foot of the mountain where a carpet of flowers bloomed, that the village gathered once more. It was here, above the alcove where their two homes intersected, that the hero and the sorceress joined hands, declared their love and commitment, and sealed their promises with a kiss.

  
It was here that Karolina and Nico tore up the pages of their written destinies and began anew with fresh pages.

In the place where the mountain met the valley, they found their home, their peace, and their freedom. All in a kiss.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I had this sudden idea to write an original fairy tale while I was working on My Heart for a Song, so I just went for it. I’d originally missed writing in this kind of style, but this story ended up unfolding in a completely different direction than I’d expected. It’s a little unconventional and a little meditative, maybe even a little obtuse, but I enjoyed watching the story unfold and I hope you did too. 
> 
> I tried to keep the story as simple as possible, intending to keep it under 4K words at first, and it’s such a different story from my last few projects, that I honestly don’t know how to feel about it. Perhaps this story is a manifestation of my own homesickness. 
> 
> I did not include this in the story, but I envision deanoru becoming part time members of the valley at the end. They would venture out whenever necessary in order to maintain diversity, or they’d retreat into the castle for days of privacy. They can do whatever they want, and that’s kind of nice to think about. I wrote a story based on Beauty and the Beast a few years ago (entitled Beauty and the Silver Beast on ao3) and this story brought me a bit of nostalgia for that.
> 
> Anyway, I will be back with Heart for a Song soon! In the meantime, kudos and comments are much appreciated!


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